SGWNews:09/25/06 Firing Squad Interviews Chris Bernert
From Stargate Worlds Wiki (SGW)
Article at StargateWorlds.com
by Khatie
From the Firing Squad Website: "The Stargate franchise began life as a big budget sci-fi action movie but has evolved into a massive fictional universe thanks to two TV series (Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis).
Now new developer Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment is hard at work on Stargate Worlds, a MMORPG that they hope will expand the franchise even further. FiringSquad got a chance to chat with its senior game designer Chris Bernert to find out more about their plans for Stargate Worlds:
FiringSquad: First, Stargate Worlds recently announced that it would use Epic's Unreal Engine 3 as the graphical basis for the game. Why was this decision made and how will the Unreal Engine be altered for use in the game?
Chris Bernert: The Unreal Engine provides proven engine technology combined with excellent scalability. We needed a client that would provide for not only great visuals but lots of players within the game space and the Unreal Engine was up to task on both fronts. Another big plus for the Unreal Engine is its comprehensive toolset which allows us to hit the ground running.
FiringSquad: How hard will it be to integrate the Unreal Engine with Big World's server technology?
Chris Bernert: Unreal said … Really difficult, many have tried, none have succeeded. BigWorld said … Impossible, you are mad. It is an incredibly difficult task and probably one of our largest technical challenges.
FiringSquad: Recently it was announced that Stargate SG-1 had been cancelled by Scifi. Can you give us your reaction to this news and how it might affect the game's development?
Chris Bernert: Well our initial reaction was "well that blows" because we are all fans of the series and were spoiled having two Stargate franchises to watch. We had understood that the cancellation was always a possibilty, and we had planned for it, but the news was still sad for us. As for how will this effect the game, I take it as a positive. Although we have close relations with the show's writers and are privy to the scripts before shooting begins, we still have to create the content and conceptualize the main villains and main story arc. The positive thing about the show being cancelled is that the writers can't throw us any curveballs. For example, if we base a large part of our content on the Ori and the writers decide to eradicate them we're placed in a difficult position. As it stands now we have a bit more freedom to direct the flow of the stories and of course we will remain loyal to whatever Atlantis throws our way. We now await word from the producers as to the future of Stargate as a franchise."
